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Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Welcome back to the IKEsWORLD challenges :) do pop on over to IKEsWORLD to join in the challenge, just remember, you must use and IKEsART image to be eligible for the prize. Why not pop on over to the store too :), Ike produces the most amazing stamps, everything from off the wall to cute and fluffy :) :) :)

I have such a feeling the DT are going to go dark on this challenge and I just never know where to begin with dark lol so I have chickened out and opted for a classical blokes card using the lovely digi Castle available from IKEsART.

To begin with I coloured the castle with Faber Castell Polychromos pencils, it looked quite night time with moonlight at this stage but alas when I cut the image with the oval die I lost most of my black sky, not bright of me. I have tried to darken the sky a bit but it still looks like the moonlight is sunlight.

Trying to keep a night feel to this card, I embossed some black paper and then sprayed it with blue Cosmic Shimmer.

Next I wanted to make some clouds so used this Angel Hair fiber I have had for donkeys years. I pulled a bunch out, stretched it into a sort of square shape and ironed it to bind the fibres together. This was then placed directly behind the digi images and then this section was mounted onto the card using foam tape for lots of height.

A simple Birthday sentiment from my peel off stash which I mounted on card and then airbrushed with Midnight Blue Promaker. A black brad was used to finish off.

Time to add a bit of metal, don't think blokes are into flowers and ribbon lol. Something else I have had lying around for a few years are the spiral paper clips, they seemed like a good idea when I bought them but alas they sit there looking forlorn. Today they came in handy though :) Using some gold star brads which I cut the backs off, I then attached these to the spiral paper clips to represent stars in the night sky and the glow they emit.

For the inside of the card I used some of the left over embossed black paper, added a thin strip of metallic blue paper and the rest was just a pretty blue I had a hand.

Monday, July 27, 2015

Today is my day to showcase and image from Sweet Pea Stamps and I have chosen to work with the beautiful image Fairy Tea Party by Katerina Koukiotis which is available from the Sweet Pea Store in both rubber and digi.

Time to make another of my tea bag holders which I so love giving as gifts :) I started by cutting all my sections for the tea box holder from a pattern I made. I then covered the box with some awesome hand made paper a friend brought me back from her holidays, the colours were just perfect for the digi I had coloured earlier. Before attaching the hand made paper I embossed it with a Spellbinders embossing folder, not a deep embossing as the paper is very soft and did not want to hold the embossing well.

Next I went to town with lots of die cuts. The image was mounted on turqouise card, the same card the box was made from and also some matt gold card. I added one of the a Sizzix Thinlits Die Set 4pk - Borders to one side and a Spellbinders Les Papillions 2 butterfly. Another of these butterflies was added to the back of the box, and in the centre of each butterfly I add a small turquoise butterfly gem. For the label I used Spellbinder Ornamental Tag 1 and added another butterfly gem. For the swirls I added around the box I used Spellbinders Floral Flourishes. All the die cuts were cut using the same turquoise card I used for the box and the matt gold paper which I glued on one side, this gave me die cuts which matched the box both from the front and the back sides. A little gold bronzing powder was added to the top rim of the box and there we go, all done.

Sunday, July 26, 2015

Hello folks. We have another challenge at One Stitch At A Time so how about popping over to see all the fabulous creations by the design team. The prize this month is an awesome digi pack containing several images and a paper pack too - how cool is that.

Challenge #242

Theme 'CHILDREN'

WOW, am I out of my comfort zone, I hardly ever make cards for kids and I so struggle with them when I do. Strange as I used to be a teacher and still have not really grown up my self hahaha. Maybe I will blame it on my grandson :) - he only wants cards with the latest fashion on them and that can change in the blink of an eye. Last year it was all Lego themed and the year before Spiderman themed. So for this fortnight DT creation for the them Children I worked with the image 'Cupcakes' by Alipeepes Art.

A rummage through some design papers which came free with magazines found the perfect one, a sheet with two complimentary designs on, one with cupcake related text and the other with flowers. With that found I coloured my image to match and used lots of glitter on the flower and the icing. The camera has really mucked up the glitter on the icing as it is a very pale pink and mixed with clear embossing powder so in reality is only a wee shimmer but in the photo looks dark and heavy.

The die cuts were all cut with Spellbinders - Grand Scalloped Squares, Grand Squares, Scalloped Ovals and Circles for the mount for the image, the tag and the background. Out with the sewing machine and I attached the design paper to the mounts using a silver thread. The lace was coloured with Promarkers and also sewn to the card. To finish off a cupcake brad, couple of buttons and a big bow :)

I also decorated the inside of the card using the left over sections of paper.

Monday, July 20, 2015

Another very quick post from me :) :) I am in the UK at the moment so many miles away from my craft room with all my goodies although I do have some fun new bits and pieces to play with :) :) :)

The image I have used is Gothic Cuties' Dragon Fairy by Ronne P Barton available from Sweet Pea Stamps in rubber or as a digi. I coloured the image with Faber Castell Polychromos While I have been in the UK I have been getting a few more dies and one of them I have used on this card; it is a Tattered Lace corner die which I used four times to make a frame. The card base was embossed with an embossing folder but I have no idea where I got it from grrrrrr. Next I fussy cut my image and mounted it with foam tape then completed the inside of the card to match the front (amazing how a change in light can make so much difference to colour, the inside of the card is identical colour wise to the front :) :) )

Sunday, July 19, 2015

This week I have made and very symbolic card using the stunning and very emotive image - Hand in Hand Forever by Lynne Stansbery. I have to admit, this was a hard image to colour and took me four attempts trying different media. In the end I coloured the hands with my Blush Promarker and then added the shading using Faber Castell Polychromos.

I mentioned this was a very symbolic card, it is for my daughter and her husbands 6th Wedding Anniversay and paper and elements link directly to that most wonderful of days. For the backing paper I used a photo of my daughters bouquet, well a section of a photo really hence it is rather blurred at this size but as it is backing paper the softness was rather perfect. Two sheets were printed, one for the outside of the card and one for the inside.

My wedding bouquet many moons ago was orchids and my precious daughter decided to have them in her bouquet too, a wonderfully sentimental thing for her to have done. So, the card had to have orchids on it. I die cut the shapes and coloured again with Faber Castell Polychromos.

When I make a card to celebrate my daughter and her husbands special day I always try to include elements of the colours as a special memory. This year I have done both. Instead of writing their names I decided to just use their initials and place these amongst a spray of pearls and crystals. The pearls represent the necklace I had made for her which included some real pearls from my mother's necklace which she gave me and I had restrung and made a bit shorter. Along with the necklace for my daughter there were matching earrings. The crystals represent the wee gift she gave her guests, a Swarovski crystal ball to hang in front of their windows so when the light shone through wonderful dancing strobes of light were reflected onto their walls. For the initials I used some silver metal sheeting and used the Tattered Lace Alphabet die set.

Here you can see I have placed the initials so they touch representing unity instead of adding hearts etc.

My card base is white and this is looking to stark as I put the card together so I decided at the last minute to stamp roughly a pattern stamp I have and then I mixed green and cranberry embossing powders together to match up with the card colour theme.

For the inside I used the ruby paper I had mounted my design paper on along with the second piece of design paper and a simple die cut light green for the writing area. To finish off a few Liquid Pearls. The ruby needed to be included in the card as the wedding invitations were cream with images of the orchids and tied together with ruby/burgandy organza ribbon.

I wanted lots of dimension on this card so fussy cut the hand image and then using foam pads only at each side attached it to the card creating a domed effect. I also added a wire wedding ring to the image as is only showed an engagement ring and I added a Swarovski crystal gem to the engagement ring to represent her solitaire diamond.

Finally I added a large bow, using the same ribbon as was used for her wedding invitations, promise you it is the same ribbon hahahaha. We bought three large rolls and I promised I would add what was left to her future cards, so here I am holding true to that promise. A wee charm was added to the centre of the bow, alas the pack of 5 I bought to make her wedding card and used for the following 4 years have run out so from now on a generic charm will be the way to go. I have not done this before but I am sure my daughters won't mind :) Here is a pic of my eldest (the bride) and her sister (on the right) and cousin (on the left) so you can see how I have really tried to bring back memories of this super special day with this card :)

Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Welcome back to the IKEsWORLD challenges :) do pop on over to IKEsWORLD to join in the challenge, we would love to see you :)

I seem to be making an awful lot of mens cards at the moment, at lest I will have plenty spare for when needed which is not normally the case. For this theme of Anything But Square I have gone with a scalloped circle easel card. I know a few folks who play chess and a wee while ago while looking through one of my stash boxes of paper; think I bought it as part of a bulk buy when I first started making cards, sheets of hand made papers in a craft box was obviously a buy to good to miss lol. Inside the assortment was some fab black and white checked paper with clear wax strips dividing the squares (oops squares lol but these are hand made and quadrilaterals but not quite square hehehe). With this paper in mind I then found a suitable digi to work with - what could be more perfect than Parthanon Horse, he is a stunner and makes a perfect knight playing piece.

The image was coloured with Faber Castell Polychromos pencils, mounted on card and then fussy cut.

Next I used Spellbinders Grand Scalloped Circles to cut all my sections.

I needed some height to this card so created a chess piece Happy Birthday die cut and also cut some loose chess pieces. The die cut was mounted with foam tape behind it.

With the die cut in place I then mounted the horse (knight) using a double layer of foam tape to give real dimension.

More scalloped circles to create the writing area and to finish off the individual chess pieces were glued in place.

Sunday, July 12, 2015

Hello folks. We have another challenge at One Stitch At A Time so how about popping over to see all the fabulous creations by the design team. The prize this month is an awesome digi pack containing several images and a paper pack too - how cool is that.

Challenge #241

Theme 'Anything Goes with Chillaxing'

In keeping with National Hammock Day how can we do anything other than chill out for a while :) :) Join in our challenge with you calm, relaxing creations or ones showing relaxing pass times.

For my chilllaxing creation I am using the image 'Scent of a Woman' by Stitchy Stamps. I love this image and it is very close to my heart. Right at the beginning, just coming up to three years now, I entered my first challenge, I made a card for the StitchyBear Tic, Tac, Toe challenge. Oh how the nervousness set in, lol, so hard to put your art work out there and just hope folks like it. You can imagine how elated I was to find out I had won the challenge :) :) :) By way of saying thank you I then created a thank you card for the next challenge using on of my winning images - sure you have guessed, it was this image I am using for my candle wrapper - my first ever digi prize :)

I have made a video tutorial - click here to view it to show how I make my candle wrappers as it is a pretty hefty blog to write :) Just quickly though, first I use a photo I have taken, in this case a photo taken on our last trip to Kenya, a place called Lake Magadi which is a salt lake. Not big on wildlife but there are lots of wonderful flamingoes there. It had been 34 years since I was at Lake Magardi and I honestly don't know if it has changed much as I don't really remember it from the first time hehehe. This time though with camera in hand it was the perfect place to use my wide angled lens to capture the clouds and their reflection in the lake. OK back to my prep for this wrapper. Next, using the .png version of the image (one with the background removed) I placed it where I wanted it and printed on my tissue paper which was temporarily adhered to a sheet of stiffer paper.

Next I coloured the image with Faber Castell Polychromos

Finally I attached the wrapper to the candle using my heat gun then added some silver bronzing powder and candle varnish at the end. On the bottom of the candle I have added some Spring Green Flower Soft, although flammable it is in a safe enough location to not be a fire hazard.

Saturday, July 11, 2015

Next I used vellum with a water design to cover my base card and then sprayed it with blue Shimmer Mist. For the mat behind the image mat I stamped a fishing scene with black Memento several times and embossed with both black and clear embossing powder to give lots of texture.

I used a fishing basket and fish button as part of the embellishment. The fish button was coloured with silver paint and a blue Promarker then I added some fishing line through the button holes.

The card fish were cut using the die Fishing Fun by Joy Crafts and then I used three fish made from clay which I coloured again with silver paint to make my shoal of fish. A very simple Happy Birthday sentiment was added to the bottom of the coloured digi. I did have a wee accident with the image lol, after chalking the background and putting to one side I had moved onto the embossed mat and did not realise I had black ink on my finger - yep, you guessed it, when I picked up my coloured image I accidentally put my mucky finger on it. Oh what to do and then looking at it I thought it was rather cool, my finger then when into my black stamp pad and I added more finger prints. What fun I had and the end result is pretty cool hahahaha.